RE: [asa] Does the flagellum prove Genesis?

Thanks!!! This nails it for me. The problem with ID is that instead of
being just pro-design, they went negative and anti-evolution.

This needs to be fixed and the culture war battle rejoined.

Thanks

John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Dehler, Bernie
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 3:57 PM
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: [asa] Does the flagellum prove Genesis?

I have a feeling the ID movement is fracturing. I think it clearly started
out as "anti-evolution," judged by reading Phillip Johnson's book. There is
no conception of Theistic Evolution with them. I never heard it from them.
They think evolution is atheistic and evil. They make the argument sound
like it is "Creationism vs. Evolution." However, TE's are also
creationists. I think there are recent ID changes because of Behe. I
wonder if Behe will break-away, or ID will accept theistic evolution as a
possibility. Behe confuses me. sometimes against evolution, sometimes
looking like he is for it.

  _____

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 11:31 AM
To: Jon Tandy
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Does the flagellum prove Genesis?

John said: If Behe is comfortable with the explanation you proposed (as I
suppose he ought to be, as evidenced by his tacit acceptance of some parts
of evolutionary evidence), that God is still God and Creator even if He
created through natural processes, then why the need for the IC/ID argument
at all?

There is a very interesting exchange of correspondence in this month's First
Things (not online yet) concerning a prior First Things article on evolution
by Avery Cardinal Dulles (not online yet either). One of the letters is by
Benjamin Wilker and Jonathan Witt of the DI. There is also a letter from
Stephen Barr. If you have a chance, pick it up on the newstand. It
illustrates some of the subtleties of this debate that get lost in the heat
of the culture wars.

Here is what Wilker and Witt say:

As [Behe] notes in The Edge of Evolution, "'The assumption that design
unavoidably required 'interference'" is misguided. "'There's no reason that
the extended fine-tuning view I am presenting here necesarily requires
active meddling with nature any more than the fine-tuning of theistic
evolution does.'" He emphasizes that the univere may have been fine-tuned
to such a degree that it "underwent 'its natural development by laws
implanted in it.' One simply has to envision that the agent who caused the
universe was able to specify from the start not only laws, but much more."

Those in the first school of Cardinal Dulles' three-part taxonomy insist
that Behe and others who see strong evidence of purpose in the natural world
have simply given up science for theolgy. Hewing to the core tenet of
methodological materialism, these critics insist that natural scientists
must consider only explanations that fit into the material/mechancial
paradigm. Notice that this same criticism can be leveled against a theistic
evolutionist such as geneticist Francis Collins, who infers design from the
Big Bang, the fine-tuning of physical constants of nature, or the moral law
within the human heart. Methodological materialism rules all such
inferences out of court, and that's a problem. Investigators should be
allowed to follow the evidence.

In other words, at least Behe and the ID advocates represented by Wilker and
Witt insist that the ID argument / inference flows from the evidence and is
excluded only on improper philosophical grounds.

Here is what Stephen Barr says:

Cardinal Dulles helpfully makes clear that one can be both a Darwinist in
science and an orthodox Christian. I am simply arguing that one can also be
a Darwinist and believe in a considerable amount of teleology -- final and
formal causation -- the irreducibility of spirit to matter, and the
inexplicability of consciousness and subjectivity by physicalist
reductionism. Darwinism is merely a scientific explanation of how certain
structures and behavior seen in the biological world evolved. As such, it
is completely harmless. It is only those who seek to make more of it who
make it obnoxious.

In other words, Barr says that Darwinism doesn't rule out teleology and that
spirit and consciousness are irreducible to materialist explanations.

It seems to me that the difference between Wilker/Witt as ID-ers and Barr as
a type of TE is quite subtle. Each believes in teleology, and each believes
creation is not fully reducible to material causes. They apparently
disagree on where the inferences are properly drawn.

On Dec 7, 2007 2:05 PM, Jon Tandy <tandyland@earthlink.net> wrote:

Jon said: Isn't this what Behe's science/theology leads to, is a God who is
only a part-time, partial creator, who uses biological processes but
creatively intervenes when those processes aren't sufficient for His
purposes?

 David responded: Again, setting aside the merits of the IC argument per se,
I guess most TE's will agree with this statement, but it doesn't make much
sense to me. God is free to create however He chooses. If He created
entirely through evolution, He is still the creator; if He created through
instantaneous fiat, He is still the creator; if He created in six 24-hour
days, He is still the creator; if He created through an act of front-loading
followed by evolution, He is still the creator; if He created through
evolution punctuated by intervention, He is still the creator; if He created
through any combination of the above, He is still the creator. None of
these alternatives would make God a "partial" creator.

This is actually my point though. If Behe is comfortable with the
explanation you proposed (as I suppose he ought to be, as evidenced by his
tacit acceptance of some parts of evolutionary evidence), that God is still
God and Creator even if He created through natural processes, then why the
need for the IC/ID argument at all? Why the need to prove that there is a
scientifically demonstrable point at which God stepped in and supernaturally
created something that was scientifically/naturally "impossible", if one
admits that God is creator even through gradual "natural" processes? It
seems like if the Discovery Institute fully accepted the view that God is
creator despite His use of natural processes, which best fits the TE view,
they could save themselves a lot of time and trouble trying to find the
supposedly irreducibly complex processes that *prove* God's direct
intervention in creation. If they continue to cling that hope, then why?
and does that indicate the don't fully accept the possibility of God
creating through natural processes?

Jon Tandy

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Received on Fri Dec 7 16:19:49 2007